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Friday, June 22, 2012

Interesting subject isn't it, for most passionate P1800 drivers like myself, this article on cision-wire wakes-up a core value of our P1800 Passion ! some extracts that speak by themselves:

They say that people tend to resemble their dogs in both appearance and
personality. Could the same be true, personality-wise, of people and the cars they drive?
Unfortunately, most of us are restricted in the choice of car that we’d
really like to own because of financial, family or other constraints. In
the world of fictional TV series, however, there are no such
constraints and producers often very cleverly provide the perfect match
of car and character. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

The Saint

At
first the choice of a Volvo as the wheels for the suave, handsome,
devil-may-care Simon Templar seems a bit odd. After all, Volvos are
staid, reliable transport used by antique dealers and middle class
families, aren’t they? So might the thoughts of the sixties TV watching
public have run when the Saint first hit their screens. However, the
newly launched Volvo P1800 of the time was unlike any Volvo that had
gone before.

Being Volvo’s first sports car, the company wanted
their new model to have a real impact on the buying public and they
turned to Italy for the car’s exterior design. The stunning, curvaceous
lines that the Italian (*)designers came up with were a perfect match for
the debonair flair and good looks of the Saint, played by Roger Moore.
Although not a supercar, the P1800 was no slouch, its 100bhp engine
giving it sufficient performance for those occasions when the Saint had
to outrun the bad guys.

The P1800 was beautiful but it was also
practical; it had a decent-sized boot and could comfortably accommodate
four adults in its coupe styled body. Roger Moore was so impressed with
the car that he chose to drive one himself.

...

There are many more similar examples of enlightened matching of driver
with car that brighten our TV screens but these will have to await
another article. I hope that at least one of your favourites has been
included among the selections above. All that remains is for you to
start asking yourself, “What does my choice of car tell the world about
me?”

(*) Pelle Petterson will forgive the author about the common mistake "The stunning, curvaceous
lines that the Italian designers came up with", this long lasting mistery of the designer of the Car was revealed and officially published by Volvo Cars Heritage only recently after 50years of being hidden, you most probably know all the story, if not read it on Pelle Petterson's and P1800 wikipedia pages that I contribute to keep as accurate as possible for years (see also my humble page about Pelle here)

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Herpa just reassorted today the gone stock of the recently produced 1800S in 1:87 scale in blue metalic ref 34906 (my favorite color despite the fact my 1800S is "only" ice blue), dont be fooled by the original difference of the herpa pictures with the missing door handles in the 2011 Herpa pictures, the doors have always been present (thank you Michele for this investigation with our German model friends), see more on Herpa site here
This is also a very good opportunity to remind everyone the best in class website regarding miniatures P1800 (in fact best in class for all Volvo miniatures) the revered work of Michelle, please check www.minivolvo.lu

Take a tour

One of my favorite quote from French literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes:

I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them.[ Roland Barthes - Mythologies 1957]A collection of essays examining the tendency of contemporary socialvalue systems to create modern myths.

«What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself.» [Roland Barthes]